Final Research Findings Brief

Project aims, objectives, methods 
This project asks how the global alternative media networks organise non-government public action in four different national contexts. Alternative media is a particularly interesting example of public action because it uses open-sourcing technology to produce and distribute news across the planet. 
Key research findings (bullet points)

What is the history of particular alternative media networks/organisations? 
North alternative media networks are usually based on a logic of autonomy and have appeared from a long history of more traditional alternative organizations
Southern alternative media networks are usually based on a logic of aid and co-operation and often spring from a history of NGO activism. 
Alternative media networks in transitional countries (such as former Soviet Bloc countries) have increasingly moved towards a commercial logic. This springs from a history of struggle against state forces. 

What are the inter-organisational dynamics of alternative media networks?
Affinity: Inter-organisational networks often operate because of close affinities between alternative media groups. These affinities are constructed through shared experiences and solidarities, and invoke specific politically-concerned subjectivities and identities.
Trans-national networks: Alternative media frequently operates across state boundaries, bringing together independently operating media and other collectives working together on a particular campaign. 
Links to mainstream media: Content produced by alternative media organisations is sometimes used by corporate and state-owned media for their own media production. 

What are the organisational dynamics of alternative media organisations?
Boundaries: Most alternative media collectives have a shared sense of boundary of outside/inside, which tends to become more developed as the organisation matures. While this aides the construction of a shared organisational identity, it often leads to the alternative media collective becoming increasingly resistant to the involvement of outsiders and newcomers.
Trust: There are many challenges in organising global alternative media networks where face-to-face interactions and different cultural and political contexts, can mitigate against the development of trust and understanding. Typically a mixture of virtual and physical spaces needs to be maintained and shared in order to develop trust, understanding, rules and shared schemas. 
Funding: A lot of organisational conflict takes place around issues of funding. Many individuals and collectives are very aware of the political economies surrounding many funding sources. Funding routes which would enable more long-term planning and stable organisation thus often are rejected in the interest of purity, contributing to precarious organisational setups that effectively involve ad-hoc planning and short-term decision making.

What are the labour processes involved in the production of alternative media?
Voluntary work: Alternative media work is almost entirely done on a voluntary basis. In order to sustain the voluntary nature of this work, volunteers engage in other forms of paid employment or rely on private incomes as well as state benefits to support them. 
 ÔBlaggingÕ: This is the necessary process of collecting resources, materials and knowledge in order to produce or hold together the basic infrastructure of alternative media collectives. It involves the sharing of limited resources amongst different alternative media collectives as well as social movements, gift giving, ÔmisuseÕ of resources, hacking and other processes that allow activists to resource their activities without relying on state or corporate funding organisations. 
Emotional and identity work: Many activists are very committed to the alternative media collectives they belong to, which often have strong identities with a corresponding sense of boundaries around the organisation/network. Coupled with intense work effort, and sometimes with traumatic experiences of repression, these can contribute to tensions, complications and conflicts within and between collectives. At the same time, shared and subjective senses of injustice, as well as experiences of exhilaration and joy in social movement events, both draw people towards, and maintain commitments, to the Ôself-exploitationÕ that can accompany social movement work.  


Policy and practice implications (bullet points)
Developing context specific media polities for alternative media
Use context depend models to allow alternative media to thrive. Our results suggest that alternative media operates in different ways in different contexts. In wealthy northern countries alternative seems to thrive when it is autonomous from market and state influences. In developing Southern countries, alternative media seems to work best when it is connected with more established international NGOs which provide funding, structure and legitimacy. In transitional economies, Alternative media organizations seem to thrive when they span the gap between civil society and the market. 
Raise awareness of different understandings of what alternative media means in each context. It important that when working on international alternative media projects, participants are aware of the different definitions of what alternative media is in different contexts. By raising awareness it is possible to avoid misunderstandings and possibly conflicts. 
Building inter-organizational networks
Use emotional affinities to overcome ideological differences. Often alternative media networks find it difficulty to work with other social movements due to divergent ideological positions. We found that it was possible for networks with different ideological persuasioins to work together when they recognised the common ÔfeelingÕ they had towards an issue rather than they differing ideological assessments of the issue. 
Use issues to build cross-national networks. We found that the most successful cross-national mobilizations for alternative media often involved very specific issue based campaigns.
Alternative media is as an R&D lab for mainstream media. We found that alternative media often was an important space where stories and new techniques of news delivery were developed and refined before they were taken on by more mainstream news-media. 
Organizing alternative media 
Balanced boundary building. To establish themselves as a viable entity, alternative media networks need to identify clear boundaries which demarcate the inside and outside of organizational. However, if these boundaries become too tight, they are likely to make it difficult for new players to enter into the organization, thereby strangling it.
Using mixed meeting modes. It is important that alternative media organizations rely on a mixture of virtual discussion modes as well as face-to-face discussions. Often having face-to-face discussions will help to pace virtual activity.
Be careful of the dangers of funding purity. Alternative media networks should be wary of how funding from official sources puts additional burdens on them to become more bureaucratic and formalised. At the same time, they should also be aware that by not pursuing such funding they put themselves into cycles of battles for relatively short-term funding. 
Work in alternative media
Recognise the links between voluntary work in civil society and paid work. Often alternative media work is sustained by other sources of support such as families, welfare benefits, and work in the paid economy. It is important to register the tensions this establishes with existing funding streams. 
Informal means of resource mobilization. Typically alternative media networks, particularly in the north are propped by informal forms of resource mobilization. It is important that nascent alternative media networks are able to plug themselves into these gift economies if they are to survive. However, a long term reliance on such gift economies will render them ineffective  
Providing collective identity, but also providing space for emotional decompression. It is important for alternative media networks to generate a clear collective identity among members. At the same time it is important that this collective identity does not become too constricting. This is largely because it will cause pronounced feelings of stress and anxiety. This can be countered with providing spaces for emotional decompression.  
 
Key publications and outputs, with links to versions on the web.
Outputs oriented to alternative media activists, cultural and media workers, media policy analysts
History of the London Indymedia collective:  HYPERLINK "https://docs.indymedia.org/ view/Local/ImcUkHistoryProject" https://docs.indymedia.org/ view/Local/ImcUkHistoryProject
Articles and reports on network, organisational, and labour process issues published in NGO / activist / practitioner publications: 
Report on metadata standard for the transmissions network. 
IMC Africa report,  HYPERLINK "https://en.wiki.in-no.org/WSF2007Report" https://en.wiki.in-no.org/WSF2007Report 
ÔMetadata standardsÕ for Deptford Media reader.
 	 HYPERLINK "http://wiki.transmission.cc/index.php/What,_who,_why_the_standard" http://wiki.transmission.cc/index.php/What,_who,_why_the_standard 
Article in the IMEMC.org London Freelance magazine. 
Articles in popular media
Spicer, A. ÔProtestors have corporations on the runÕ, Birmingham Post, 31 August, 2007.  
Multimedia presentations: 
Special feature radio broadcasts on Resonance Fm 104.4 regarding the role of alternative media. 
Daily radio Bulletins uploaded to radio.indymedia.org and indymedia.org.uk news wire; syndicated to CKUT radio and Pacifica community radio network in the USA.
55-minute film documentary on alternative media in Palestine and Israel; in progress. 
Gallery installation with book of photographs on alternative media in Palestine and Israel; in progress.
Articles in practitioner publications addressing the implications of alternative media for media workers and organisations:
Young, Z. ÔBeach Buffs and Film CombersÕ, MetaMute.  HYPERLINK "http://www.metamute.org/en/Beach-Buffs-and-Film-Combers" http://www.metamute.org/en/Beach-Buffs-and-Film-Combers 
Bšhm, S. and Yeoh, L.-Y. (2007) ÔIfiwatchnet Statistical EvaluationÕ, Report prepared for the ifiwatchnet.org network and steering committee.
Encyclopaedia entries regarding Indymedia and alternative media more generally:
Alt.Media.Res Collective (2008) ÔIndymediaÕ, in Gary Anderson and Kathryn Herr (eds.) Encyclopaedia of Activism and Social Justice. London: Sage. 
Spicer, A. (2008) ÔIndymediaÕ, in I. Ness (ed.) World History of Protest and Revolution: 1600 - Present Day. Oxford: Blackwell.

Outputs oriented to academics
Conceptual / theoretical contributions:
Spicer, A. and Bšhm, S. (2007) ÔMoving Management: Theorizing Struggles against the Hegemony of ManagementÕ, Organisation Studies, 28(11): 1667-1698.
Sullivan, S. (2008, in press) ÔConceptualising glocal organisation: from rhizome to E=mc2 in becoming post-humanÕ, in Kornprobst, M., Pouliot, V., Shah, N. and Zaiotti, R. (eds.) Metaphors of globalisation: mirrors, magicians and mutinies.  Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Spicer, A., Bšhm, S. and Fleming, P. (Forthcoming) ÔExplaining the Infra-Political Dimensions of Resistance to International Business: A Critical Neo-Gramscian ApproachÕ, Scandinavian Journal of Management.
Articles on global alternative media networks: 
Spicer, A., Sullivan, S. and Bšhm, S. (2006) ÔProducing Global (Un)civil Society: The Case of IndymediaÕ, paper presented at ÔLocating Civil Society Participation in WSISÕ, Oxford Internet Institute, 24 April (to be submitted to Millennium).  
Sullivan, S. (2007) ÔBlogsÕ, in Robertson, R. and Scholte, J.A. (eds.) Encyclopedia of globalization. London: Routledge.
Frenzel, F. ÔBeyond ãthe NorthÒ and ãthe SouthÒ? Reciprocal Cooperation and Mutual Aid in the Independent Media Project ãIMC Nairobi WSFÒÕ. Paper presented at the conference Media and Democracy in Africa, Unversity of Westminster, 30th-31st March 2007. 
Articles on organisation processes in alternative media networks: 
Spicer, A. and Zhang, Z. (2007) ÔCreating Boundaries in a Virtual Social MovementÕ, paper presented at the SCOS conference, Ljubljana, July.
Young, Z. and Bšhm, S. (2007) ÔDis/Organising Global Alternative Media: The Case of ifiwatchnet.orgÕ, paper presented at the Social Movements Conference, 2-4 April, Manchester.
Spicer, A. (2007) ÔResource renunciation in a social movement: The case of Indymedia', paper presented at the International Sociological Association Meeting on Social Movements, Rome, June. 
Articles on labour processes in alternative media networks:
Spicer, A. (2006) ÔDis-Identification Work in a Social Movement OrganisationÕ, paper presented at the Symposium on Dis-identification, Lund University, Sweden, October.
Spicer, A. and Bšhm, S. (2007) ÔFree Labour: The political economy of social movement workÕ, paper presented at workshop on Labour issues in Non-Government Public Action, London School of Economics, December 2007.
Articles on the role of alternative media networks in local contexts across the world and comparative differences between them:
Milikic, N. and Bšhm, S. (2007) ÔAlternative Media Movements in ÒTransitionÓ: The Case of SerbiaÕ, paper presented at the Social Movements Conference, 2-4 April, Manchester.
Frenzel, F. and Sullivan, S. (forthcoming, 2008) ÔConvergence spaces and global voluntary social work: the project ÒIndymedia AfricaÓÕ. in Mudhai, F. (ed.) African media and the digital public sphere, Basingtoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
Salter, K. and Sullivan, S. (2007) ÔÒShell To SeaÓ In Ireland: Building Social Movement PotencyÕ, NGPA Working Paper, LSE.
Bšhm, S. (2006) ÔSocial Movements Organising Against Corporate Environmental Destruction: The Cases of Gualeguaychœ and Las Termas de Rio Hondo in ArgentinaÕ, paper presented at the Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero (UNSE), Argentina, 14 November.
Bšhm, S. (2008, forthcoming) ÔUpsetting the Offset: The Political Economy of Carbon Markets, Part I: Images from the North and the SouthÕ, Aesthesis.
Bšhm, S. and Brei, V. (2008, forthcoming) ÔPulp Fiction: Marketing the Hegemony of DevelopmentÕ, Marketing Theory.
For further information 
Andre.spicer@wbs.ac.uk 










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